


Never Meant To Do Her Harm

by Femme_Fatale_0335



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Mutually Unrequited, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Post-Canon, Requited Unrequited Love, Umm Idk what else, just a mediocre little mailee fic that took me an absurdly long time to write, replenish the Mailee tag on AO3 2020, seriously there's not much to it but it's pretty cute if i do say so myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28556148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Femme_Fatale_0335/pseuds/Femme_Fatale_0335
Summary: a few years after ty lee leaves the fire nation to join the kyoshi warriors, she returns for a visit, which leaves mai grappling with her complicated feelings for her best friend.
Relationships: Mai & Suki (Avatar), Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Suki & Ty Lee (Avatar)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Never Meant To Do Her Harm

**Author's Note:**

> uhm so i like leaving notes at the beginning of stuff i write bc usually i have something to say but this time i honestly don't have much so... enjoy?

_ Two more days _ . Mai had started counting down a few weeks ago, with  _ one more month _ . It had seemed a little silly to count down from anything higher than that. No use living in the future instead of the present. She had hoped that counting down would make her more excited and less apprehensive, but instead, as  _ one more month _ became  _ three more weeks _ and, before she knew it,  _ one more week  _ was  _ six more days _ , that annoying little voice in her head, the one that knew exactly how to push her buttons and never hesitated to do it, the one that always showed up when she couldn’t sleep at night, got louder and louder: “You don’t want to see her, do?” it nagged, “You’re just pretending you do because it’s rude not to want to see your best friend. You’re still mad at her for leaving you, aren’t you? You don’t want to see her because you know you’ll have to forgive her, and you don’t want to. You’d rather stay angry, wouldn’t you?” And no matter how valiantly she fought against it, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it, she knew it was right. 

_ Why  _ exactly she didn’t want to see Ty Lee, though, was something she still hadn’t been able to figure out, not even in those moments at three o’clock in the morning when she would have admitted to anything, no matter how painful or how humiliating it may be. It wasn’t as if Ty Lee had done anything with the intention of hurting her – all she had done was get a new job and move away. People did that all the time; their best friends didn’t feel slighted for all that. Was it because she was afraid Ty Lee would find a better friend and replace her? Mai pondered this, but ultimately decided that wasn’t it. Kyoshi Island was full of girls anyone would want to be friends with, and Ty Lee got along with just about anyone anyway, but Mai knew that Ty Lee wasn’t going to replace her. She got along with Suki, sure, but who didn’t? When you’ve been in each other’s lives for as long as Ty Lee and Mai had, it took more than a few new friends to come between you. 

The first thing Ty Lee did when she saw Mai was hug her as tightly as she possibly could. Mai hugged her back, swallowing a lump in her throat. “So,” Ty Lee was saying, “what have you been up to?”

“Oh, you know,” Mai replied, trying to sound as detached as possible, “the usual. It’s been pretty boring without you.” Ty Lee laughed.

“Are you saying… you missed me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You kind of did.”

“Whatever.”

That evening Mai and Ty Lee lingered in the palace gardens, trading memories. Finally, they got around to discussing what each had been doing since they had seen each other. After a breathless account of her time with the Kyoshi warriors, Ty Lee paused and asked, “What about you? What have you been up to?” Mai sighed.

“Not much, really. Remember, I don’t really have any friends around here, with you gone and Zuko busy all the time.” Ty Lee nodded.

“I’ve been meaning to ask about you and Zuko. Are you still…”

“A couple? No.” Mai had trouble reading the expression on Ty Lee’s face after she said that. It almost looked like relief, but that didn’t make sense. It was probably just surprise, she concluded. “I thought so,” Ty Lee said after a pause, “at dinner you weren’t really acting like a couple. What happened?” 

“Nothing, really. We just decided we liked being friends better.” There was a silence that seemed just a little too long. “So I guess you’re not seeing anyone, then?” Ty Lee asked.

“No. Like I said, there’s really no one of interest around here. Everyone is so… dull.” Ty Lee laughed. “Fire Nation boys always were a bit of a bore,” she remarked. Then, Mai said something that surprised even her. “Who said anything about boys?” She had known for years that she wasn’t interested in men, and that if she were ever to fall in love, it would be with a woman. But she had never intended to be so  _ open _ about it. As far as she was concerned, it was nobody’s business but her own. Ty Lee stared at her, and she looked away. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” she mumbled. 

Over the next few days, they tried to recover the easy camaraderie they had had in the past, but it seemed to be gone forever. No matter where they went or what they did, as soon as they were alone together, something hung between them like a smokescreen. They took to making someone else come with them to relieve the tension: sometimes Zuko, when he wasn’t busy, or Suki, who had come from Kyoshi Island with Ty Lee, or Sokka, who was in town to see Suki. That made it a little easier, but if whoever they had invited left for even a minute, the discomfort would come back. 

This worked reasonably well for around a week, but one evening, circumstances conspired to leave Mai and Ty Lee alone together in the palace gardens. This was dangerous terrain, and Ty Lee knew it: one misstep, one more misplaced question, and she and Mai would never be the same again. Perhaps their relationship had already changed beyond repair. So she stared into space, resolutely trying to convince herself that the silence was peaceful and not awkward. She heard something that sounded like a hiccup, or even a sob, and when she looked over at Mai, she could hardly believe her eyes. Was Mai… crying? 

In all their years together, Ty Lee couldn’t remember ever seeing Mai cry. For all her insistence that she didn’t care, Mai was proud to a fault. Nobody knew that better than Ty Lee. there had been dozens of times where she knew her friend was falling apart, but Mai always held her head high and never,  _ ever _ , shed a tear in public. And yet here she was, her face buried in her hands, sobbing. Ty Lee moved to put her arm around Mai, but Mai pushed her away. “Don’t,” she said through a sob, “you’ll only make it worse.” Ty Lee stared at her.

“Make what worse?” Mai lifted her head and waved her hands vaguely in front of her.

“Everything.” After a long pause, she spoke again. “I can’t be around you,” she said, “It’s too hard.” 

“What do you mean? Is it something I’ve done?” Mai shook her head.

“Of course not. It’s not about you. It’s all my fault. Ty Lee… I think I’m in love with you.” Ty Lee didn’t say anything. What  _ could _ she say? It wasn’t every day that your best friend told you she was in love with you. And even if what you wanted to say was that you were in love with her too, and that you hadn’t said anything because you thought she couldn’t possibly love you back, how did you even begin to say that? 

She didn’t have time to come up with an answer because Mai seemed to have mistaken her surprised expression for proof that Ty Lee didn’t love her back. She got and left, and Ty Lee didn’t bother following her. She knew Mai would need to be alone for a while before she could even begin to talk about it. She would find Mai in the morning, she figured, and they would talk about it. It was easier that way. Besides, if she was honest, she needed a moment to herself as well.

Out for a walk in the moonlight, Suki heard someone crying from within the palace walls. Leaving Sokka outside (she loved him, but she didn’t think he was the best person to bring), she opened the gate and walked in. Mai, hearing footsteps and seeing the green robes of the Kyoshi warriors before she saw a face, stopped crying and refused to make eye contact. “Go away, Ty Lee,” she snapped, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Ty Lee isn’t here,” Suki said gently. Mai looked up.

“Oh,” she said, “it’s you. I’m sorry you had to see me like this.” Suki shook her head.

“Don’t worry about it. It happens to the best of us. Now, are you going to tell me what happened?”    
“I told Ty Lee I’m in love with her.”

“And? Why should that make you cry?”

“Because she doesn’t love me back.”

“Did she say that?”

“Well, no, but…”

“What  _ did _ she say?”

“Nothing. And that’s worse.” 

“Bullshit. Mai, I  _ live _ with Ty Lee. Do you know who she talks about the most? Who she always mentions when she’s talking about how she misses home?” Mai didn’t answer, so Suki continued. “It’s you, Mai. She talks about you all the time.” Mai shrugged.

“Doesn’t mean anything. We’re friends – or we were, anyway.”

“Oh, you’re friends, are you? Is that why she Can never stop herself from smiling when she hears your name? Why she cried herself to sleep when she heard a rumor that you were engaged? Why she told me that night, when I asked her why she was so upset, that it was because she wanted to be the one to spend the rest of her life with you? She loves you, Mai.” 

Mai stared at her. “I have to go find her, don’t I?” she asked tentatively. Suki nodded, but before she could say anything, Mai was off, running to the spot where she had left Ty Lee. When Sokka came into the garden and asked her what had happened, she merely smiled cryptically.

When she heard footsteps behind, Ty Lee turned to see who it was, even though she already knew on some level that it was Mai. This time, she didn’t hesitate. “I love you, Mai. I’ve always loved you. I –” But she never got to finish that sentence, because Mai kissed her, and by the time it was over, Ty Lee couldn’t remember what she was going to say, and, truth be told, she didn’t care. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!


End file.
